The Guardian is launching a PDF edition updated every 15 minutes, aimed at commuters (via Buzzmachine). I like the idea and suspect it will fly. Here's why:
They are inventing a new practice: printing an up-to-the-minute roundup of news before you leave work and reading it on you way home. Selling a new practice is tricky--witness all the 'applications' that 3G mobile operators have been trying to push for years: video calls, music videos, etc. But this is different.
The practice the Guardian is trying to sell --or rather, give away-- is not a radical innovation. It builds on--is in fact just a new instance of--a series of existing practices: printing something for the commute, reading the news on the tube, reading the news on paper, reading evening papers, checking the news on the web before going home, etc. But it improves on them by offering the up-to-the-minute freshness that only on the web can offer, on the go, without gadgets. And for the Guardian's substantial US audiences, this will be their only way of getting a printed, typeset copy of the paper.
Some would say that this doesn't stand a chance against news on PDAs, i.e. against products like AvantGo. I'm not so sure. I've tried twice to get into that practice, but after a month I always give up. It's not just that it's messy (synchronising, subscribing, etc); the actual act of reading just doesn't feel natural. You stand out. Too far from existing practices. Maybe one day.
I know I'm being repetitive, but it's my blog: it's not about deliveing content; it's about using content to enable practices.
(On a slightly related note: I never understood all the excitement around the Guardian's move to the Berliner format. It's slightly more convenient than before, but you still need both hands to read it--which tabloids don't, and which is essential if you are standing on a train. For me, this means that if it's rush hour I choose the Independent or the Times. And if I end up with the Guardian, all I can read is the G2).
[See also: McNealy on devices]
:Update 18/12/06: The format seems to be taking off, reports Media Life
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